The Seville Communion

IX

It's a Small World

Worthy of being dark and Sevillian. Campoamor, The Express Train

The floodlights illuminating the cathedral created an area of unreal brightness in the night. Confused by the light, pigeons flew in all directions, suddenly appearing and then disappearing into the darkness among the huge mountain of cupolas, pinnacles and flying buttresses, on top of which perched the tower of La Giralda. It was almost fantastical, thought. Quart, a backdrop as extraordinary as old Hollywood movie sets made of canvas and papier-mache. The difference was that the Plaza Virgen de los Reyes was real, built of bricks over the centuries – the oldest part dated from the twelfth century -and no film studio could have reproduced such an incredible place, however much money and talent they threw at the project. It was unique, a perfect stage. Particularly when Macarena Bruner walked across it and stopped beneath the huge lamppost in the centre of the square. She stood against the golden glow of the floodlit stone facades, tall and slender, her dark eyes calmly fixed on Quart.

"There are very few sights like this," she said.

It was true, but the man from Rome was also aware of how much the woman's presence added to the fascination of the place. The daughter of the duchess of El Nuevo Extremo was dressed as she had been that afternoon in the courtyard of the Casa del Postigo, but she now had a light jacket around her shoulders and carried a small leather rucksack. They had hardly spoken as they walked here. Quart had left Father Ferro in his observatory and taken leave of the duchess. Come back to see us, the elderly lady said pleasantly, and as a souvenir she gave him a small mudejar tile of a bird. It once decorated the courtyard but it fell from the wall in the bombardments of 1843 and spent a century and a half amongst several dozen broken and damaged tiles in a cellar near the old stables. As Quart was leaving the house with the tile in his pocket, Macarena stopped him at the gate. She suggested they take a walk and then eat tapas in a bar in Santa Cruz. Unless you have another appointment, she added, giving him a look. With an archbishop or something. Quart laughed, buttoning his jacket. And now here they were, the two of them, in the plaza with the illuminated cathedral. Looking at each other. And none of this, Quart thought with clarity, was doing much for the spiritual tranquillity that the ordinances of the Church recommended for the eternal salvation of a priest's soul.

"I'd like to thank you," she said.

"What for?"

"For Don Priamo."

More pigeons flew into the darkness. Quart and Macarena walked towards the Reales Alcazares and the arch in the wall, she turning to him occasionally, a faint smile on her lips. "You got close to him," she said. "Maybe now you understand."

Quart said he could understand certain things. Father Ferro's attitude, his stubbornness about the church, his resistance to Quart's mission there. But was that only part of the problem. Quart's task in Seville was to make a general report on the situation, including, if possible, the identity of Vespers. But he still had no information on the hacker. Father Oscar was about to leave, and Quart hadn't been able to determine whether he had anything to do with the matter or not. And Quart had yet to go through the police reports and review the investigation of the archbishop's palace into the deaths of the two men at the church. In addition – he indicated the jacket pocket where he'd put Carlota Bruner's postcard – he had yet to solve the mystery of the card and the page marked in the New Testament.

"Whom do you suspect?" Macarena asked.

They now stood in the archway by the small baroque altar to the Virgin, which was enclosed in glass, and Quart's laughter echoed dry and humourless in the vault. "Everybody," he said. "Don Priamo Ferro, Father Oscar, your friend Gris Marsala… Even you. Everyone here is a suspect, whether suspected of the deed or of keeping silent."

He glanced to the left and right as they entered the courtyard of the Alcazares, as if he expected to find culprits there, lying in wait. "I'm sure you're all covering up for one another. It would take only one of you to talk openly for thirty seconds, and my investigation would be closed."

Macarena stood beside him, looking at him intently, holding her rucksack to her chest. "Is that what you think?" she asked.

Quart inhaled the fragrance of the orange trees in the courtyard. "I'm certain of it," he said. "Vespers is one of you, and he sent the message to attract Rome's attention and help Father Ferro save his church… He believes, in his simplicity, that appealing to the Pope will mean the truth will out. That the truth cannot harm a just cause. Then I come to Seville, ready to uncover the truth that Rome wants, which possibly is not the truth as you all see it. Maybe that's why nobody's helping me, why instead I am presented with mystery after mystery, including the riddle of the postcard."

They walked on, crossing the square. Sometimes their steps brought them closer to each other, and Quart was aware of her perfume, like jasmine, with hints of orange blossom. Her smell was the smell of the city.

"Maybe the point is not to help you," she said, "but to help others. Perhaps it's all about making you see what's happening."

"I understand Father Ferro's attitude. But my understanding is of no use. You sent your message, hoping for a good cleric full of sympathy, and what they sent is a soldier wielding Joshua's sword." He shook his head. "Because that's what I am, a soldier, like that Sir Marhalt you were so keen on as a young girl. My job is to report the facts and find those responsible. It's up to others to show understanding and find solutions, if there are any." He paused and then smiled slighdy. "It's no use seducing the messenger."

They came to the curving passageway that led into Santa Cruz. As they walked, their shadows joined along the whitewashed walls. It was strangely intimate, and Quart felt relieved when they emerged at the other end, into the night.

"Is that what you think?" she asked. "That I'm trying to seduce you?"

Quart didn't answer. They went on in silence by the wall, then turned down a narrow street that took them into the old Jewish quarter.

"Sir Marhalt also championed just causes," she said.

"Those were different times. Anyway, your Sir Marhalt was only a creation of John Steinbeck's. There are no just causes left. Even mine isn't one." He paused, as if reflecting on the truth of his words. "But it's my cause."

"You forget Father Ferro."

"His isn't a just cause. It's a personal choice. Everyone gets by as they can."

"Oh, please. I've seen Casablanca about twenty times. That's all I need, a priest playing the disillusioned hero. A priest who thinks he's Humphrey Bogart."

"I don't. I'm taller. Anyway, you're wrong. You know nothing about me." She walked on ahead, staring straight in front of her, as if she didn't want to hear. He wanted to take her by the arm and hold her back, but he stopped himself. "You don't know why I'm a priest, or why I'm here, or what I've done to be here," he said. "You don't know how many Priamo Ferros I've known in my life, nor how I dealt with them when I received orders." He spoke bitterly, knowing his words were useless. How could she understand?

She turned to face him and said, "It sounds as if you're sorry you don't have a head to send back to Rome in the next post." She moved towards him. "You thought it would be easy, didn't you? But I knew that things would be different once you got to know the victim."

"You're wrong," said Quart, holding her gaze. "My getting to know Father Ferro makes no difference, at least not on an official level."

"And what about unofficially?" She tapped her forehead. "You must have your own thoughts."

"That's my business. Anyway, I've known lots of my Victims', as you put it. And it made no difference."

Her sigh was contemptuous. "I suppose not. I suppose that's why you get to buy custom-made suits from smart tailors, wear expensive shoes and carry credit cards and a fantastic watch." She looked him up and down, provoking, hostile. "They must be your thirty pieces of silver."

She was angry, and Quart began to wonder how far she intended to go. They stood facing each other in a narrow street. Overhead, loaded with flowerpots, the balconies on either side almost touched.

"These clothes," Quart said, holding his lapel between two fingers, showing it to her, "and these shoes, and these credit cards, and this watch are very useful when you're trying to impress a Serbian general or an American diplomat. There are worker priests, married priests, priests who say Mass every morning, and priests like me. And I couldn't tell you who makes it possible for whom to exist." He smiled ironically, but his attention was elsewhere – Macarena was too near him, the street too narrow. "Although your Father Ferro and I agree on one thing; neither of us has any illusions about his job."

He stopped, suddenly afraid of his need to justify himself to her. They were alone in the street, lit by a distant streetlight. She looked lovely, her parted lips showing her white teeth. She breathed slowly, with the serenity of a woman who is beautiful and knows it. Her expression was no longer contemptuous. Quart felt a very real, physical, male fear, similar to vertigo. He had to make an effort not to step backward and rest against the wall. "Why won't you tell me what you know?" he asked.

She looked at him as if she'd expected something else. Her eyes moved to his dog collar. "You may not believe this, but I know very little," she answered finally. "I can guess at certain things. But I won't be the one to speak. You do your job, while others do theirs."

Quart set off up the narrow street. She followed in silence, clasping her leather rucksack to her chest.

Inside Las Teresas, hams hung among bottles of La Guita, old posters for Holy Week and the April feria, and faded photographs of slender, serious, long-dead bullfighters. At the bar, waiters wrote down customers' orders while Pepe, the manager, cut thin slices of Jabugo ham with a long razor-sharp knife, singing softly:

How pleased I am, dear cousin, how pleased I am to eat Serrano ham.

He addressed Quart's companion as Dona Macarena and, without either of them ordering anything, brought them tapas of pork in tomato sauce, pork sausage, grilled mushrooms, and two tall-stemmed glasses of fragrant, golden Manzanilla. By the door, leaning on the bar beside Quart, a regular with a red face was conscientiously downing one glass of wine after another. Pepe stopped singing occasionally and, still slicing ham, exchanged a few words with him about a football match soon to be played between Sevilla and Betis.

"Fantastic," the red-faced man said with drunken regularity. Pepe nodded and started singing again, and the man went back to his wine. A grey mouse poked its head from his jacket pocket. From time to time the man gave it little pieces of cheese from the plate beside him on the bar. The rodent diligently nibbled the cheese and nobody seemed in the least surprised.

Macarena sipped her Manzanilla. She rested an elbow on the bar confidently, as if she were at home. In fact, she moved through all of Santa Cruz as if it were part of her home; and in a way it was, or had been for centuries – every corner recorded in her genetic memory, known to her territorial instinct. Quart realised, and the realisation did nothing to calm the IEA agent, that he couldn't conceive of the district or the city without her presence, her black hair, her white teeth, her dark eyes. Once again he thought of the paintings of Romero de Torres, and the old tobacco factory that now housed the university. Carmen the cigarette girl, the damp tobacco leaves rolled against a tanned thigh. He looked up, and his eyes met hers, intent upon him.

"Do you like Seville?" Macarena asked.

"Very much," he said, wondering if she could guess his thoughts.

"It's a special place." She picked at their tapas. "The past and the present live here quite happily side by side. Gris says that we Sevillians are old and wise. We accept anything, and anything's possible." She glanced briefly at their neighbour with the red face and smiled. "Even sharing one's cheese in a bar with a mouse."

"Is your friend any good with computers?"

The look she gave him was almost admiring. "You never give up, do you?" she said, spearing a mushroom with a cocktail stick and eating it. "You have a one-track mind. Why don't you ask her?"

"I did. She was evasive, as you all are."

A man came in. He was fat, about fifty, and dressed in white. For a moment Quart thought he'd seen him somewhere before. The fat man raised his hat as he passed, looked around as if searching for someone, peered at his watch, then left by the other door, swinging a silver-handled walking stick. Quart noticed that the man's left cheek was red and covered with ointment, and that his moustache looked peculiar, as if it had been singed.

"What about the postcard?" Quart asked Macarena. "Does Gris Marsala have access to your great-aunt Carlota's trunk?"

She smiled, amused at his persistence. "She knows where it is, if that's what you mean. But it could just as easily have been Don Priamo. Or Father Oscar, or even me. Or my mother… Can you picture the duchess with her Coca-Cola, wearing a baseball cap back-to-front, hacking into the Vatican computer system in the wee hours?" She speared a piece of meat in tomato sauce and offered it to Quart. "I'm afraid your investigation may become absurd."

As Quart took the cocktail stick from Macarena, his fingers brushed hers. "I'd like to have a look at that trunk," he said.

She watched him as he ate the tapa. "Now? You and I, alone?" She smiled. "That's rather risky, isn't it? Although I suspect your real purpose is to see what kind of computer I have." Pepe put a plate of ham in front of them and she looked absent-mindedly at the red slices streaked with fragrant fat. "Well, why not? It'll give me something to tell my friends. And I'd love to see the archbishop's face when he finds out." She tilted her head to one side thoughtfully. "Or my husband's."

Quart looked at the silver hoops in her ears. "I don't want to cause you any trouble," he said.

She laughed. "Trouble? I hope it makes Pencho green with envy and seethe with rage. If he hears that not only is his deal for the church falling through, but there's also a rather interesting priest hanging around me, he'll go insane." She looked intently at Quart. "And become dangerous."

"Sounds worrying." Quart finished his glass of Manzanilla, not looking in the least bit worried.

"Anyway," said Macarena after a moment's thought, "it would be good for you to sec Carlota's trunk. You'd gain a better idea of what Our Lady of the Tears means."

"Your friend Gris," said Quart, taking a slice of ham, "complains that the money for the restoration work has run out…"

"It's true. The duchess and I have only just enough to live on, and the parish has no money. Don Priamo has a small salary, and the Sunday collection isn't enough even to pay for candles. Sometimes we feel like explorers in the movies, with the vultures circling. On Thursdays, in particular, a strange scene takes place."

With a couple of Manzanillas in front of them, she told Quart how Our Lady of the Tears couldn't be touched as long as Mass was held there for the soul of her ancestor Gaspar Bruner de Lebrija, at eight in the morning every Thursday. He died on a Thursday in 1709. So an envoy from the archbishop and a notary hired by Pencho Gavira were present in church every Thursday, in a pew at the back, waiting for the slightest error or irregularity.

Quart said he couldn't believe it, and they both laughed. But Macarena was soon serious again. "It sounds childish, doesn't it? Everything depending on such a little thing." She raised her glass to her lips but stopped and put it down. "All it would take to condemn the church is for the priest not to celebrate the Thursday Mass or to deviate from the set formula. The archbishop of Seville and the Cartujano Bank would then win… That's why I'm worried that once Father Oscar is out of the way, they'll try something against Don Priamo."

She actually seemed frightened. Quart didn't know what to think. "That's hard to believe," he said at last. "I don't much like Monsignor Corvo, but I'm sure he'd never allow…"

She raised a hand, as if to place it on his lips. "I'm not talking about the archbishop," she said. Then she drew back, turned to the bar, and played with the stem of Quart's glass.

You're trying to muddle me, he thought. He didn't know whether she was acting on her own initiative or for others, or whether the aim was to seduce the messenger or neutralise the enemy. The fact was that between them all, under the pretext of making him sec the other side of the story, they were confusing him thoroughly. You need something solid to hold on to, he told himself. Your work, the investigation, the church, anything. Data and facts, questions and answers. A clear mind, a serenity like hers. Woman as instrument of the devil, beacon of perdition, enemy of humanity and the immortal soul. Keep a distance or you're finished, Lorenzo Quart. What was it Monsignor Spada said? If a cleric kept money out of his pocket and his legs out of a woman's bed, he stood a chance of saving his soul. Or something like that.

"About the money," he said. He had to keep asking questions. He was here to carry out an investigation, not to have Carmen of the Tobacco Factory place her fingers on his lips. "Have you thought of selling the pictures in the vestry to fund restoration work?"

"They're not worth anything. The Murillo isn't even genuine."

"What about the pearls?"

She looked at him as if he'd just said something incredibly stupid. "Why doesn't the Vatican sell off its art collection and give the money to the poor?" she replied. She finished her drink, took out her wallet, and asked for the bill. Quart insisted on paying but she wouldn't hear of it. The manager was apologetic: I'm sorry, Father, Doha Macarena's a regular, etc.

They went out into the street. Their shadows lengthened in the light of the streetlamps. In the stretches without lights, the moon took over, white and almost full between the shadows of the eaves and the balconies above their heads. After a moment she spoke. "You still don't understand," she said, sardonic. "The pearls arc Carlota's tears. Captain Xaloc's legacy."

Footsteps echoed loudly in the narrow streets, so the three villains kept at a healthy distance from the pair, and they took turns passing them so as not to arouse suspicion: sometimes Don Ibrahim and La Nina Punales, with El Potro del Mantelete staying behind; at others El Potro on his own, or with La Nina on his arm – the arm that wasn't burned and in a sling – but always keeping the priest and the young duchess in sight. It wasn't easy, because the streets of Santa Cruz twisted and turned, and had many dead ends. On one occasion, the three colleagues had to reverse in a hurry, tiptoeing panic-stricken into the shadows, when Quart and Macarena came to a closed square and returned the way they'd come after standing and talking for a few minutes.

Now everything was all right again. The pair were walking along a street with gentle turns and wide doorways, so they could be followed without much risk. More relaxed, Don Ibrahim – a large pale form in the darkness – took out a cigar and put it in his mouth, twirling it voluptuously in his fingers. El Potro and La Nina walked nine or ten paces ahead, keeping a close eye on the priest and the young duchess. The former bogus lawyer felt a wave of affection as he watched his companions. They were carrying out their mission very conscientiously. In the quiet stretches, La Nina removed her high-heeled shoes to make less noise. She walked with a grace that the years hadn't taken from her in spite of everything, carrying her shoes and the handbag that contained her crocheting, Peregil''s camera, and the newspaper clipping allegedly about a man with green eyes who had killed for her love. Eternal Nina in her polka-dot dress, with her dyed hair, the kiss-curl like Estrellita Castro's: a flamenco singer heading for an imaginary tablao. At her side, serious, manly, El Potro gave her his good arm, knowing that it was the most precious homage he could pay to a woman like her.

His walking stick under his arm, Don Ibrahim lit his cigar. He pock-1 eted the dented silver cigarette lighter – a keepsake from Gabriel Garcia Marquez, whom Don Ibrahim knew, he said, when the author of No One Visits Colonel Paramo was a humble reporter in Cartagena de Indias – and felt the tickets for Sunday's bullfight, purchased that very afternoon by El Potro. In his spare time, the former bullfighter and boxer worked with gangs of thimblerig players near Triana Bridge. He was a shield for the guy who handled the three cups and the little ball: Now you see it, now you don't, come along, sir, lay down twenty-five thousand pesetas. And all around, accomplices crowed about their winnings, and a couple of men on the corner watched out for the police. Looking grave and responsible, in a checked jacket that was too small, El Potro inspired confidence. Thanks to his performance, he and his colleagues had relieved a Puerto Rican tourist of a good wad of dollars. So to make up for his blunder with the Anis del Mono bottle, El Potro presented Don Ibrahim and La Nina with expensive tickets for the bullfight. He'd invested his entire morning's earnings in the three tickets, because there were some really big names on the bill: Curro Romero, Espartaco, and Enrique Ponce (Curro Maestral had been taken off at the last minute with no explanation) and six – six! – Cardenal y Murube bulls.

Don Ibrahim expelled a cloud of smoke and touched the tender skin on his cheek that had been carefully covered with ointment. His moustache and eyebrows had been singed, but he really couldn't complain: it had very nearly been a catastrophe, but they had got away with superficial burns, a ruined table, a blackened ceiling, and a big fright. Particularly when they saw El Potro running around the room with his arm on fire, as in the film with Vincent Price in the wax museum. With great presence of mind and invoking the Virgin Mary, La Nina had given Don Ibrahim a good squirt with the soda siphon and thrown a blanket over the table to put out the fire. After that, it was all smoke, explanations, neighbours banging at the door, and a rather uncomfortable moment when the firemen arrived and found no fire, just the three red-faced partners. By tacit agreement none of them ever referred to the unfortunate incident again. For, as Don Ibrahim put it, raising a learned finger after La Nina got back from the pharmacy with a tube of ointment and plenty of gauze, there are painful episodes in life that are best put out of one's mind.

The priest and the young duchess must have stopped to talk, because La Nina and El Potro were waiting discreetly at the corner, standing against the wall. Don Ibrahim was grateful for the pause -propelling his considerable bulk over long stretches was no easy task. He gazed up at the moon and savoured his cigar, its smoke spiralling gently upwards in the silvery moonlight. Not even the smell of urine and garbage that hung around some of the bars in the darkest streets could entirely obliterate the fragrance of the orange blossom, the jasmine, and the flowers that spilled over the balconies. From behind the blinds one could hear, as one passed, muffled music, snatches of conversation, dialogue from a film or applause on a TV quiz show. From a nearby house came a few bars of a bolero that reminded Don Ibrahim of other moonlit nights on different streets, and he wallowed in nostalgia for his two pasts: the real and the imaginary, which in his memory merged into a series of elegant evenings on the warm beaches of San Juan, long walks through Old Havana, aperitifs in Los Portales de Veracruz with mariachis singing "Divine Women", by his friend Vicente, or "Pretty Maria", a song in whose composition he played such a part. Or perhaps, he said to himself as he took another long drag on his cigar, it was only his youth that he missed. And the dreams that life always destroys.

Anyway, he thought as El Potro and La Nina moved on and he set off after them, he would always have Seville; parts of it reminded him so strongly of places from his past. For at certain corners, in the colour and light, the city retained, as no other city, the gentle hum of time slowly extinguishing itself – or of himself being extinguished. Don Ibrahim took another puff of his cigar and nodded sadly: a beggar was asleep in a doorway, covered with newspapers and cardboard, an empty plate beside him. Instinctively, he put his hand in his pocket and found a coin, beneath the tickets to the bullfight and Garcia Marquez's lighter. He bent down with difficulty and placed the coin next to the sleeping figure. Ten paces further on, he realised that he no longer had change for his phone call to Peregil. He considered turning back and retrieving the coin, but stopped himself. El Potro or La Nina might have some coins. A gesture was a profession of faith. And it wouldn't have been an honourable thing to undo it.

It's a small world, but after that night Celestino Peregil often wondered if the encounter between his boss and the young duchess and the priest from Rome happened by chance, or if she'd promenaded the priest under Gavira's nose on purpose, knowing that at that hour her husband, or ex-husband, or whatever he was technically at that stage, always had a drink at the Loco de la Colina Bar. Gavira was sitting on the crowded terrace with a girlfriend, while Peregil was inside, at the bar, near the door, playing the bodyguard. Gavira had ordered Scotch on the rocks and was savouring his first sip, admiring his companion, an attractive Sevillian model who, despite her notorious deficit in the intellectual department, or maybe because of it, had achieved fame because of a line in a TV ad about a certain make of bra. The sentence was "This is all mine", and Penelope Heidegger, the model – who, anatomically, had every right to make such a claim – said it with devastating effect. Gavira was obviously preparing to enjoy what was all Penelope's in the next few hours. As good a way as any, thought Peregil, for his boss to take his mind off the Cartujano Bank, the church and all the stuff that was making life hell.

The henchman smoothed his hair and glanced around. From his lookout by the door he could see up to the corner of the Calle Placcntines. He also had a good view of Penelope's legs, her tiny Lycra miniskirt revealing a generous expanse of thigh, next to Gavira's crossed legs. The temperature was pleasant, and Gavira was in shirtsleeves, his tie loosened and his jacket hanging over the chair. In spite of his problems, Gavira was looking good, with his hair slicked back, and he exuded wealth, his gold watch gleaming on his strong tanned wrist. Santana's "Europa" was playing. A happy, peaceful, almost domestic scene, thought Peregil. Everything seemed to be going smoothly. There was no sign of the Gypsy Mairena or El Polio Muelas, and the itching in Peregil's urethra had disappeared thanks to a bottle of Blenox. At that moment, just when he was most relaxed, with high hopes for both himself and his boss – he had his sights on a couple of good-looking chicks sitting at the back, in fact he'd already established eye contact – and as he ordered another whisky ("a twelve-year-old'', he told the waiter with cosmopolitan aplomb), he suddenly wondered how things were going for Don Ibrahim, El Potro and La Nina and where they might be at this time of night. When they last checked in, they were about to set fire to part of the church, just enough to close it down and prevent Thursday Mass; but he had not heard from them since. He'd probably find a message on his phone when he got home. Such were Peregil's thoughts as he sipped his whisky. Then he saw the young duchess and the priest from Rome turn the corner, and he nearly choked on an ice cube.

He moved closer to the door but stayed inside. He sensed catastrophe. It was no secret that Gavira was insanely jealous of his still lawfully wedded wife. And even if he hadn't been, the front cover of Q amp;S and those photographs with the bullfighter were reason enough for the banker to be furious. To cap it all, the priest was handsome, well dressed, classy. Like Richard Chamberlain in The Thorn Birds but more manly. Peregil started trembling, especially when he saw El Potro, with La Nina on his arm, poke his head discreetly round the corner. After a moment Don Ibrahim joined them, and the three associates stood there, disconcerted and doing a very poor job of looking casual. Peregil wished the earth would swallow him up.

With the blood throbbing at his temples, Pencho Gavira stood up slowly, trying to keep control. "Good evening, Macarena," he said.

Never act on your first impulse, old Machuca had told Gavira when he was starting out. Dilute the adrenaline, do something with your hands, and leave your mind free. Play for time. So he put on his jacket and buttoned it carefully as he stared into his wife's eyes, which were as cold as ice.

"Hello, Pencho," she said, with barely a glance at his companion, an almost imperceptible sneer at the tight skirt and the neckline revealing the bosom that had become a part of the national heritage. For a moment, Gavira wasn't sure who was reproaching whom. Everyone on that terrace, in the bar, in the whole street, was staring at them.

"Would you like a drink?"

Whatever else his enemies might say, they could not deny that he had nerves of steel. He smiled politely, even though every muscle was taut and a red veil blurred his vision as the throbbing increased. He adjusted his tie and stared at the priest, waiting to be introduced. The cleric was pretty elegantly turned out, in a black custom-made suit, black silk shirt, and round collar. On top of that, he was tall. Gavira hated tall men. Particularly when they were quite openly walking through Seville in the evening with his wife. He wondered whether people would disapprove if he punched a priest in the face outside a bar.

"Pencho Gavira. Father Lorenzo Quart."

They continued to stand. Penelope was still sitting, forgotten for the moment, on the margins. Gavira shook Quart's hand, gripping it hard, and the priest responded with equal strength. The priest's eyes were calm, and the banker told himself that there was no reason to think the priest was involved. But when Gavira turned to look at his wife, Macarena's eyes were like daggers. His anger was starting to get the better of him. He sensed that everyone was staring at him. They'd be talking about this for a week.

"You go out with priests now, do you?"

He hadn't wanted it to come out like that. He hadn't wanted to say it at all, but it was too late. There was the hint of a triumphant smile on Macarena's lips and he knew he'd fallen into the trap. It made him even more furious.

"That's extremely rude, Pencho," she said.

It was clear how she felt, and anything he said or did would be noted and used against him. And on that terrace all Seville was a witness. She might even present the priest as her father confessor. Meanwhile, the tall priest was waiting, watching them both without a word. He obviously wanted to avoid trouble, but he didn't look uneasy. He even seemed rather friendly, standing there silently, with his sporty look, like a basketball player in mourning clothes by Armani.

"How's the celibacy going, Father?"

It was as if another Pencho Gavira was taking charge, and the banker had no choice but to go along with it. Resigned to his fate, he smiled after he'd said it. A broad smile. Damn all women, the smile implied. It's their fault that we're standing here, you and I, face to face.

"Fine, thanks." The priest sounded calm, in control, but Gavira noticed that he'd turned slightly to one side. He'd also taken his left hand out of his pocket. This priest's been in a fight before, thought the banker.

"I've been trying to speak to you for days," Gavira said, turning to Macarena but without taking his eye off the priest. "You never answer the phone."

She shrugged contemptuously. "There's nothing for us to talk about." She said it very slowly and clearly. "Anyway, I've been busy." "So I see."

In her chair, La Heidegger was crossing and uncrossing her legs for the benefit of passers-by, customers and waiters. Accustomed to being the centre of attention, she was rather put out. "Aren't you going to introduce me?" she asked Gavira.

"Shut up." The banker faced the priest again. "As for you…" Out of the corner of his eye he could see that Peregil had moved nearer the door, in case he needed him. Just then, a man in a checked jacket and with his arm in a sling passed by. He had a squashed nose, like a boxer's, and he glanced briefly at Peregil, as if expecting a signal from him. When he got none, he continued on down the street and disappeared around the corner.

"As for me," said the priest. He was infuriatingly tranquil, and Gavira wondered how he was going to get out of this without either losing face or causing a scandal. Macarena stood between them, enjoying the situation.

"Seville is very misleading, Father," said Gavira. "You'd be surprised how dangerous she can be when you don't know the rules."

"The rules?" The priest looked at him coolly. "You surprise me, Moncho."

"Pencho."

"Ah."

The banker felt he was losing his composure: "I don't like priests who aren't in cassocks," he said, setting his jaw. "Seems like they're ashamed of being priests."

The cleric stared at Gavira impassively: "You don't like them," he repeated, as if mulling it over.

"Not one bit." The banker shook his head. "And here, married women are sacred."

"Don't be an idiot," said Macarena.

The priest looked at La Heidegger's thighs and then back at Gavira. "I see," he said.

Gavira pointed a finger at the priest's chest. "No," he said, his voice slow, thick, menacing. He regretted every word almost as soon as it was out of his mouth, but he couldn't help himself. It was like a nightmare. "You don't see."

The priest considered Gavira's finger. The red veil before Gavira's eyes was getting thicker. He sensed rather than saw Peregil move closer still, a good subordinate ready to protect his boss. Macarena now looked worried, as if things had gone further than she'd expected. Gavira felt a strong urge to slap both her and the priest, venting all the rage accumulated during the last few weeks over the break-up of his marriage, the church, Puerto Targa, the board of directors that in a few days would decide his future at the Cartujano. His whole life passed before his eyes – the battle to get ahead, the complicated manoeuvring with Don Octavio, his marriage to Macarena, the countless times he'd risked his neck and won. And now that he'd almost made it, Our Lady of the Tears stood there in the middle of Santa Cruz like some dangerous reef. It was all or nothing: you either sail round it or sink. The day you stop pedalling, you'll fall off, as the old banker told him.

Gavira made a tremendous effort not to punch the priest, who'd picked up a glass from the table. It was Gavira's glass. The priest held it casually but like a weapon. Gavira realised that Quart wasn't the kind of priest who turned the other cheek. That calmed him suddenly, and made him look at the man with curiosity. Even with a kind of perverse respect.

"That's my glass, Father," he said.

The priest apologised with a quiet smile. He put the glass back on the table, where Penelope was impatiently drumming her lacquered nails, and then, nodding briefly, he and Macarena went on their way without another word. Gavira took a long gulp of whisky. He watched them thoughtfully, while Peregil, behind him, breathed a sigh of relief.

"Take me home," pouted Penelope.

Gavira, watching his wife and the priest disappear around the corner, didn't even turn. He emptied his glass and only just stopped himself from smashing it on the ground. "Fuck you," he said.

He handed the glass to Peregil, with a look that was as good as an order. Peregil, with another resigned sigh, shattered the glass on the ground as discreetly as he could. As he did so, he startled an eccentric-looking couple just then passing the bar: a fat man dressed in white, with a hat and walking stick, and, on his arm, a woman in a polka-dot dress, with a kiss-curl like Estrellita Castro's, carrying a camera.

The three of them met up just around the corner, beneath the Arab portico of the mosque, on the steps that smelled of horse manure and old Seville. Don Ibrahim seated himself with difficulty, ash from his cigar dropping onto his paunch.

"We were lucky," he said. "There was enough light to take the photos."

They deserved a few minutes' rest. He was in a good mood, feeling satisfied with a job well done. Audaces fortuna llevat, and all that; although he wasn't too sure that llevat was the right verb.

La Nina sat down next to him with a jangling of bracelets and earrings, the camera in her lap. 'I'll say," she agreed in her husky voice. She put her shoes down and rubbed her bony legs, which were covered with varicose veins. 'Peregil can't complain this time. By God he can't."

Don Ibrahim fanned himself with his panama and stroked his singed moustache. In this moment of success, his cigar smelled glorious. "No," he said festively. "He can't. He saw himself how it was all carried out with impeccable, almost military precision. Isn't that right, Potro? Like commandos in the movies."

Since no one had told him to sit down, El Potro stood, as if on duty, and nodded. "Exactly," he said.

"Which way did the lovebirds go?" asked Don Ibrahim, placing the panama on his head.

El Potro glanced down the street and said they were heading toward the Arenal; plenty of time to catch up with them.

Don Ibrahim took the camera from La Nina's lap and handed it to him. "Go on, take out the film before it spoils."

Obediently, manoeuvring with both "his good arm and the one in the sling, El Potro opened the camera while Don Ibrahim searched for the other roll of film. At last he found it, took it out of its box, and handed it to his associate. "You did rewind it, didn't you?" he asked casually. "Before opening the camera?"

El Potro, very still, stared at Don Ibrahim. Suddenly he snapped shut the camera. "What was it I was supposed to rewind?" he asked suspiciously, arching an eyebrow.

Holding the new film in one hand and his cigar in the other, Don Ibrahim looked at him for some time. "Shit," he said.

They walked in silence to the Arenal. Macarena turned to look at Quart from time to time, but neither of them spoke. There wasn't much to say and he couldn't ask whether the encounter with her husband had been an accident or planned by her. He would probably never know, he thought.

"This is the way he went," Macarena said at last, when they came to the river.

They descended wide steps that led to the quays of the Guadalquivir, at the foot of the ancient Arab tower named Torre del Oro. There wasn't the slightest breeze, and the shadows of the palms, jacarandas, and bougainvilleas were motionless in the moonlight.

"Who?" he asked.

"Captain Xaloc."

Dark and still, tourist boats were moored to pontoons along the deserted bank. The black water reflected the lights of Triana on the opposite side, bounded by strings of car headlights on the Isabel II and San Telmo bridges.

"This was Seville's old port," said Macarena. She wore her jacket round her shoulders and still clutched her leather bag to her chest. "Only a century ago, there would have been ships docking here… The remains of the great trade with America. Ships sailed down the river to Sanlucar, then Cadiz, before crossing the Atlantic." She walked forward and stopped by a flight of steps leading down to the dark water. "Old photographs show all kinds of vessels – brigantines, schooners, skiffs – moored on both banks… Over there were the fishermen's boats, and boats with white awnings that brought the cigarette girls over from Triana to the tobacco factory. All the cranes and the warehouses were here on this quay."

She fell silent, turning towards the Paseo del Arenal, the dome of the Maestranza Theatre, the modern buildings that stood between them and the tower of La Giralda, lit up in the distance, and Santa Cruz, hidden from view.

"It was a forest of masts and sails," she added. "That was what Carlota saw from the pigeon loft."

They walked along the quay in the shadows cast by the trees in the moonlight. A young couple was kissing in the light of a street-lamp, and Quart saw Macarena watching them with a thoughtful smile.

"You are nostalgic," he said, "for a Seville you've never known."

Her smile widened, then her face was again in shadow. "That's not true," she said. "I knew it well, and still do. I've read and dreamed a lot about this city. Some things my grandfather and mother told me. Others I simply knew instinctively." She touched her wrist, where her pulse beat. "I feel them here."

"Why did you choose Carlota Bruner?"

Macarena took a moment to answer. "She chose me." She turned to Quart. "Do priests believe in ghosts?"

"Not really. Ghosts don't stand up to electric light or nuclear power… Or to computers."

"Maybe that's their charm. I believe in them, or at least in a certain type of ghost. Carlota was a romantic young woman who read novels. She lived wrapped in cotton wool in an artificial world, protected from everything. One day she met a man. A real man. It was as if she'd been struck by lightning. Unfortunately, Manuel Xaloc fell in love with her too."

Occasionally they passed the motionless shadow of someone fishing from the quay, the ember of a cigarette, a glint of light at the end of a rod and line, a splash in the calm waters. A fish flapped on the paving stones of the quay, gleaming in the moonlight until a hand returned it to the bucket.

"Tell me about Xaloc," said Quart.

"He was thirty years old and poor, a second officer on one of the steamers that sailed between Seville and Sanlucar. They met when Carlota took a journey downriver with her parents. They say that he was also handsome, and I imagine that his uniform added to his looks. You know that's often true of sailors, soldiers…"

She seemed about to add something but left the sentence unfinished. They passed a tourist boat moored to the quay, black and silent. Quart managed to make out its name in the moonlight: LOVELY.

Macarena went on. "Xaloc was caught lurking by the railings of the Casa del Postigo, and my great-grandfather Luis had him fired. He also used all his influence, and it was considerable, to make sure that the man didn't get a job anywhere else. Desperate, Xaloc decided to go to America to seek his fortune. Carlota promised she would wait for him. It's the perfect plot for a romantic novel, don't you think?"

They walked side by side, and once again their steps occasionally brought them so close together that they almost touched. Suddenly Macarena stepped around an iron bollard in the darkness, and she was right next to Quart, brushing his side for the first time. She seemed to take an age to move away.

"Xaloc boarded his ship here," she said. "A schooner called the Nausica. Carlota wasn't even allowed to come and say goodbye. From the pigeon loft she watched the ship sail down the river; it wouldn't have been possible for her to see him from so far away, but she claimed he was on deck, waving a handkerchief until the boat was out of sight."

"How did things go for Xaloc?"

"Well. After a time he was given command of a ship and smuggled goods between Mexico, Florida and Cuba." There was a hint of admiration in her voice. Quart could picture Manuel Xaloc on the bridge of a ship, a column of smoke on the horizon. "They say he wasn't exactly a saint, that he also did some pirating. Some of the ships that crossed his path sank without trace, or were found mysteriously adrift, plundered. I suppose he was in a hurry to make his fortune and return… For six years he sailed the Caribbean and he acquired quite a reputation. The Americans put a price on his head. One day, out of the blue, he landed in Seville with a fortune in banknotes and gold coins and a velvet bag that contained twenty wonderful pearls for their wedding."

"Even though he'd never heard from her?"

"Yes. I suppose Xaloc was a romantic too. He assumed that my great-grandfather had prevented Carlota from writing and he had faith in her love, and in a way he was right. She told him she'd wait for him, and she was still waiting in the tower, watching the river." Macarena stared at the black current. "She had gone mad two years before his return."

"Did they get to see each other?"

"Yes. My great-grandfather was devastated. At first he refused. He was an arrogant man and blamed Xaloc for the misfortune. In the end, on the advice of doctors and his wife's pleas, he agreed to a meeting. The captain came one afternoon to the courtyard that you know, in his merchant navy uniform: navy blue, gilt buttons… You can picture the scene, can't you? His skin was weathered by the sun, and his moustache and sideburns had turned grey. They say he looked twenty years older than he was. Carlota didn't recognise him. After ten minutes a clock struck and she said, 'I must go to the tower. He may return at any time.' And she left."

"What did Xaloc do?"

"He didn't say a word. My great-grandmother was weeping and my great-grandfather was plunged into despair. Xaloc picked up his cap and left. He went to the church where he'd hoped to be married and gave the priest the pearls he'd brought for Carlota. He spent the night wandering around Santa Cruz, and at dawn he left on the first ship that set sail. This time nobody was there to watch him wave his handkerchief.''

There was an empty beer can on the ground. Macarena nudged it into the water with her foot. They heard a faint splash and both watched the small black shape float away.

"You can read the rest of the story," she said, "in newspapers of the time. While Xaloc was on his way back to the Caribbean in 1898, the Maine was blown up in the port of Havana. The Spanish government authorised privateering against North America, and Xaloc immediately got hold of a letter of marque. His ship was a very fast cutter, the Manigua, armed and with a crew recruited from riffraff in the West Indies. He sailed around probing the blockade. In June 1898, he attacked and sank two merchant ships in the Gulf of Mexico, and had a nighttime encounter with a gunboat, the Sheridan, in which both ships were badly damaged…"

"You sound as if you're proud of him."

Macarena laughed. He was right. She said she was proud of the man who might have been her great-uncle had the stupidity and blindness of the family not interfered. Manuel Xaloc was a real man, to the end. Did Quart know that he went down in history as the last Spanish pirate, and the only one in the Spanish-American War. His great achievement was breaking the blockade of Santiago. He entered the port at night with messages and supplies for Admiral Cervera, and then on the morning of the third of July he headed out to sea with the other ships. He could have stayed in port since he was a merchant seaman and wasn't under the orders of the squadron, which everyone knew was doomed. It consisted of old and poorly armed ships that didn't stand a chance against the American battleships and cruisers. But he set sail. He went last, after all the Spanish ships, having gone forth one after the other, had been sunk or torched. He didn't think of escape. Instead, he headed for the enemy ships at full steam, with a black flag hoisted alongside the Spanish one. When he was sunk, he was still trying to ram the battleship Indiana. There were no survivors."

The lights of Triana, reflected in the river, flickered softly on Macarena's face.

"You know the story well," said Quart.

She smiled slowly. "Of course I do. I've read accounts of the battle a hundred times. I've even kept the newspaper clippings in the trunk." "Carlota never knew?"

"No." Macarena sat on a stone bench and searched in her bag for her cigarettes. "She waited another twelve years at that window, staring at the Guadalquivir. Gradually the port declined and there were fewer and fewer boats. The schooners no longer plied up and down the river. And one day she too disappeared, from the window." She put a cigarette in her mouth and pulled out her lighter. "By then, the story of Carlota and Captain Xaloc had become a legend. As I said, there were even songs about them. She was buried in the crypt of the church where she would have been married. And by order of my grandfather Pedro, who was the new head of the family after the death of Carlota's father, the twenty pearls were used to represent tears on the face of the Virgin."

She lit her cigarette, shielding the flame of the lighter with her hand. She waited for the lighter to cool and then tucked it back under her bra strap, apparently unaware that Quart was watching her every move. She was engrossed in the memory of Captain Xaloc.

"That was my grandfather's homage," Macarena went on, "to the memory of his sister and the man who might have been his brother-in-law. The church is all that's left of them now. That, and Carlota's things, the letters and all the rest of it." She glanced at Quart, as if she'd just remembered he was there. "Including that postcard."

"There's also you, and your memories."

There was no joy in Macarena's moonlit smile. "I'll die, just like the others," she said quietly. "And the trunk and its contents will end up in an auction, surrounded by other dusty objects, just like everything else." She drew on her cigarette and exhaled the smoke abruptly, almost scornfully.

Quart sat beside her. Their shoulders touched, but he made no effort to move away. The fragrance of jasmine, blended with the smell of tobacco, reached him. "That's why you're fighting your battle," he said.

She nodded. "Yes. My battle, not Father Ferro's. A battle against time and oblivion." She spoke so quietly that Quart could hardly make out her words. "I belong to a breed that's dying out, and I'm fully aware of it. It's lucky, really, because there's no longer a place for people like me and my family, or for memories like mine… Or for beautiful, tragic stories like that of Carlota Bruner and Captain Xaloc." The ember of her cigarette glowed. "I'm just waging my own personal war, defending my space." She spoke louder and addressed her words directly to Quart. "When the time comes for me to die, I'll accept my end is near with a clear conscience. Like a soldier who surrenders only when he's fired his last bullet. Having done my duty to the name I bear and to the things I love. That includes Our Lady of the Tears and Carlota's memory."

"Why must it all end like that?" Quart asked gently. "You could have children."

Something flashed across the woman's face. There was a long silence before she spoke again. "Don't make me laugh. My children would become litdc aliens sitting in front of computer screens, dressed like the kids in American sitcoms. To them Captain Xaloc's name would sound like something out of a cartoon." She threw her cigarette into the river. "So I'll pass on that ending. Whatever there is will die with me."

"And your husband?"

"I don't know. For the time being, he's in good company, as you've seen." She laughed contemptuously. "Let's make him pay all his debts… After all, Pencho's the kind of man who likes to rap on the bar for his bill and leave with his head held high." She bowed her head, and that gesture seemed an omen or a threat. "But this time the price will be high. Very high."

"Does he still have a chance?"

She turned to him, surprised, mocking. "With whom? With what? The church deal? With that little tramp with the big tits? With me?" As she moved in the darkness, her eyes reflected distant lights and the pale glow of the moon. "Any man would have a better chance with me. Even you."

"Please, leave me out of it," said Quart. His tone must have been too emphatic, because she paused, interested.

"Why should I leave you out? It would be a wonderful way of taking my revenge. And very pleasant. At least I hope so."

"Revenge against whom?"

"Against Pencho. Against Seville. Against everything."

The shadow of a tug, silent and flat-bottomed, moved down river. After a while, the muffled rumble of motors reached them, as if unrelated to the boat itself, which seemed to move unaided on the current.

"It looks like a ghost ship," she said. "Like the schooner Captain Xaloc sailed away on."

The only light on the vessel, the solitary port-side light, cast a red glow on her face. She followed the boat with her eyes until it took the bend in the river and the green light on the other side showed. The red gradually disappeared, and there remained only a tiny green dot that receded into the distance until it too faded completely.

"He appears on nights like this," she added. "When there's a full moon. And Carlota looks out of her window. Would you like to go and see her?"

"Who?"

"Carlota. We could go into the garden and wait. As when I was a child. Wouldn't you like to come with me?" "No."

She looked at him for a time in silence. "I wonder," she said, "where you get your damned composure from."

"I'm not as composed as you think." And Quart laughed quietly. "At the moment my hands are trembling."

It was true. He had to stop himself from reaching out and clasping her head, under her ponytail, and pulling her to him. Dear God. From some deep recess of his mind came the memory of Spada laughing. Abominable creatures, Salome, Jezebel. The devil's creation. She put out her hand and linked fingers with Quart, and found that he really was trembling. Her hand was warm. It was the first time they had touched other than in greeting. Quart released his hand carefully, and punched the stone bench hard with his fist. The pain shot up into his shoulder.

"I think it's time for us to go back," he said, standing.

She looked at his hand and then up at his face, disconcerted. Without a word they walked slowly towards the Arenal, avoiding contact. Quart chewed his lip so as not to make a sound of pain. He could feel the blood trickling down his ringers from his wounded knuckles.

Some nights are just too long, and this one wasn't over yet. Quart had just returned to his hotel and taken his key from the sleepy concierge when he saw Honorato Bonafe waiting in the lobby. Among the man's many unpleasant traits was the habit of appearing at the most inconvenient times.

"Could I have a word, Father?"

"No."

With his injured hand in his pocket and holding his key in the other, Quart started towards the lift, but Bonafe stood in the way, smiling in the same unctuous manner as at their earlier meeting. He also wore exactly the same crumpled beige suit and carried the same small bag with a wrist strap. Quart looked down on the journalist's plastered hair, flabby jowls, and cunning, watchful little eyes. Nothing good could have brought the man here.

"I've been investigating," said Bonafe.

"Go away," said Quart, about to ask the concierge to throw him out.

"Aren't you curious to know what I've learned?"

"I'm not interested in anything you have to say."

Bonafe looked hurt. "Pity," he said, puckering his moist lips. "We could come to an agreement. And my offer is generous." He moved his thick waist, swaying slightly. "You tell me a couple of things about that church and the parish priest that I could use in an article, and in exchange I give you a nice little piece of information you don't have." His smile broadened. "And while we're at it, we won't mention your little evening strolls."

Quart stopped dead, not believing his ears. "What do you mean?"

The journalist seemed satisfied that he'd aroused the priest's interest. "Something I know about Father Ferro," he said.

"No, I mean what you said about evening strolls." Quart fixed him with his eyes.

Bonafe waved a small manicured hand dismissively. "Oh, well, what can I tell you? You know…" He winked. "Your busy social life here in Seville."

Quart gripped the key in his good hand and considered using it against the man. But that was inconceivable. No priest – not even one as devoid of Christian meekness and with an unusual speciality such as Lorenzo Quart – could fight a journalist over a woman, at night, only twenty metres from the archbishop's palace and a few hours after a public scene with a jealous husband. Even though he belonged to the IEA, they'd post him to Antarctica. So he made a great effort to control himself. Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.

"I suggest a pact," said Bonafe. "We tell each other a couple of things, I leave you out of all this and we keep it all very friendly. You can trust me. Just because I'm a journalist doesn't mean I don't have principles." He struck his chest theatrically at heart level, his little eyes gleaming cynically between their puffy lids. "My religion is the truth."

"The truth," repeated Quart.

"That's right."

"And what truth do you want to tell me about Father Ferro?" The man's smile broadened again. A servile, conspiratorial grimace. "Well." He checked his nails. "He's had some problems." "We all have."

Bonafe clicked his tongue with a worldly look. "Not that kind," he said, lowering his voice lest the concierge overhear. "Apparently, in his previous parish he was short of money. So he sold a few things: a valuable icon, a couple of paintings… He didn't tend the Lord's vine as he should." He laughed, amused at his own joke. "He drank the wine."

Quart remained impassive. He'd been trained to take in information and analyse it later. Anyway, he felt a stab to his pride. If this was true, he should have known about it. But nobody had informed him. "And what does this have to do with Our Lady of the Tears?"

Bonafe pursed his lips. "Nothing, in theory. But you have to agree that it would cause a nice little scandal." The odious smile became roguish. "That's journalism for you, Father: a bit of this, a bit of that… All we need is a grain of truth somewhere, and voila, a front-page story. It can be denied later, or we can get more information, or whatever. Meanwhile, two hundred thousand copies have been sold."

Quart looked at him with disgust. "A moment ago, you said the truth was your religion.''

"Did I say that?" Bonafe replied, impervious to Quart's contempt. "I must have meant the truth with a small t, Father."

"Get out."

"I'm sorry?" Bonafe was no longer smiling. He glanced warily at the key that Quart was gripping in his left hand. And now Quart took the other hand out of his pocket, its knuckles swollen and covered with dried blood, and the journalist's anxious eyes went from one hand to the other.

"I said get out, or I'll have you thrown out. I might even forget that I'm a priest and throw you out myself." He took a step towards Bonafe, who took two steps back.

"You wouldn't dare…" the journalist protested feebly. But he said no more. There were evangelical precedents: the merchants in the temple and all that. There was actually a very expressive relief on the theme only a few metres away, above the door of the mosque.

Quart grabbed Bonafe and dragged his small podgy person towards the door, to the astonishment of the concierge. Bonafe tried to readjust his clothing before receiving one last push that sent him through the door and into the street. His bag fell to the ground.

Quart picked it up and threw it out after him. "I don't want to see you again," he said.

Under the streetlight, the journalist was trying to recover his dignity. His hands were trembling and his hair was dishevelled. He was white with humiliation and fury. "I haven't finished with you," he managed to say at last. His voice cracked in an almost feminine sob. "You son of a bitch."

Quart shrugged; it wasn't the first time he'd been called that. He returned to the lobby. Behind the reception desk, one hand still on the telephone receiver – he'd begun to call the police – the concierge gaped, his eyes popping with astonishment and respect. Some priest.

Despite the cuts on his knuckles and the swelling, Quart could move the joints of his right hand without too much difficulty. Cursing his stupidity aloud, he took off his jacket and went to the bathroom to wash and disinfect the wound. Then he filled a handkerchief with all the ice he could find in the minibar and applied it to his hand. He stood for a while at the window, looking out at the illuminated Plaza Virgen de los Reyes and the cathedral beyond the eaves of the archbishop's palace. He couldn't get the encounter with Bonafe out of his head.

By the time the ice had all melted, his hand didn't feel too bad. He went over to his jacket and emptied the pockets. He placed their contents neatly on the sideboard – wallet, fountain pen, cards for making notes, loose change. The faded postcard to Captain Xaloc showed the church, and the water carrier with his donkey disappearing like a ghost into the white halo surrounding the picture. And the image, voice, smell of Macarena Bruner suddenly flooded Quart; the dam holding it all back burst. The church, his mission in Seville, Bonafe all turned as pale as the vanishing water carrier, and nothing remained but Macarena: her half smile in the darkness on the quay of the Guadalquivir, the glints of honey-coloured light in her dark eyes, the warm smell of her closeness. Carmen the cigarette girl rolling damp tobacco leaves against her thigh. Macarena naked on a hot afternoon, her tanned skin against white sheets and the sun filtering in horizontal stripes through the blinds. Beads of sweat at the forehead edge of her black hair, and in her dark triangle, and on her eyelashes.

It was still very hot. It was almost one in the morning when he went to take a shower. Slowly he undressed, dropping his clothes at his feet. As he did so, it seemed as if a stranger were staring back at him from the wardrobe mirror. A tall, grave man removing shoes, socks and shirt, and then leaning over to undo his belt and drop his black trousers to the floor. Then slipping his underpants down his thighs, uncovering his penis, which was stiff with the memory of Macarena. Quart stood looking at the stranger in the mirror. Slim, with a flat stomach, narrow hips, the pectorals firm and well defined, like the curve of the muscles on his arms and shoulders. Like a soldier, ageless and timeless, devoid of his chain mail and weapons, the silent man regarding Quart looked good. And what, he wondered, was the bloody point of looking so good?

The sound of running water and the awareness of his own body brought the memory of another woman. It was in Sarajevo, August 1992, during a short, dangerous trip to mediate in the evacuation of Monsignor Franjo Pavelic, a Croat archbishop highly regarded by the Pope. Pavelic was under threat from both the Bosnian Muslims and the Serbs. It took 100,000 German marks for them to agree for the prelate to go to Zagreb and not be shot at a checkpoint, which had happened to his assistant, Monsignor Jesic, killed by a sniper. Quart arrived in a United Nations helicopter with an armed escort, the money in a briefcase chained to his wrist. This was Sarajevo in its most brutal period, the shelling of bread lines, twenty or thirty dead every day and hundreds of wounded piling up in the corridors of the hospital, without electricity or medicine; no room in the cemeteries, victims buried in football pitches. Jasmina wasn't exactly a prostitute. There were women who survived by offering their services as interpreters to journalists and diplomats at the Holiday Inn, and they often exchanged more than that for a can of food, a packet of cigarettes. Encouraged by his ecclesiastical garb, Jasmina approached Quart and told him the kind of story that was all too common in the besieged city: an invalid father, the war, the hunger, no cigarettes. Quart promised to get hold of cigarettes and food and she returned that evening, dressed in black to avoid the snipers. For a handful of marks, Quart got her a packet of Marlboros and some military rations. That night there was running water in the rooms, and she asked if she could take a shower, her first in a month. She undressed by the light of a candle and stood under the water while he watched, fascinated. She was blonde, with pale skin and large firm breasts. With the water running down her body, she turned to look at Quart with a smile of gratitude and invitation. He didn't move, his back against the door frame, he just smiled. That time it hadn't been a question of rules. It was simply that you couldn't receive certain things in exchange for merely food and cigarettes. So when she was dressed, they went down to the hotel bar, and in the light of another candle they drank half a bottle of brandy, while outside, Serbian bombs fell. Afterwards, Jasmina kissed the priest quickly on the mouth and ran off into the shadows.

Shadows and women's faces. The cold water running down his face and body made Quart feel better. He held his injured hand out of the water, rested it against the tiled wall. He stood there for a while, his skin tingling, then got out and dripped on the tiled floor. He dried himself lightly with a towel and lay down on the bed, face up. His naked body left a damp outline on the sheets. He put his wounded hand between his thighs and felt his flesh grow strong-and hard, from his thoughts and memories. He could make out a man walking alone between two lights, a solitary Knight Templar on a high plateau beneath a godless sky. He closed his eyes in anguish. He tried to pray, challenging the void behind every word. He felt immense solitude. A quiet, desperate sadness.